Our use of Private 5G Networks at the Queen's funeral and at the Pitlochry Highland Games

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Private 5G Networks at the Queen's
Funeral and Elsewhere
Kieran Kunhya <kierank@obe.tv>

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Who we are?
• Company specialising in
software-based encoders and
decoders for Sport, News and
Channel contribution (B2B)
• Based in Central London
• Build everything in house:
– Hardware, firmware, software
• Not to be confused with:

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What are Private 5G Networks?
• Networks on reserved frequencies for industrial
applications that require a higher Quality of
Service than Public 5G or WiFi.
– Also known as 5G Non-public-networks (NPN)
– e.g robots, drones, hospitals and other latency sensitive
applications
• Broadcast Production is another area
• Turn up somewhere, no need for cabling
– Avoids expensive cabling costs (nonexistent or high
venue pricing)
– Benefits of IP vs traditional RF solutions
Credit: Samsung

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Private 5G Base Stations
• Traditional Base Station Vendors
– Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Huawei
• Challenger Private 5G Vendors
– Celona, Neutral Wireless, Firecell, AWS
• Broadly Speaking:
– Traditional Vendors more monolithic, requires
their engineer on site. May not be possible to bias
for upload. Also often huge (shipping container!).
May also require backend core.
– Challenger Vendors based around COTS, Software
Defined Radio. Easier to reconfigure using APIs
and also bias for upload. Local core. Smaller.

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Private 5G Base Stations (2)
• 5G Standalone (SA), a “pure
5G” implementation
• Most Public 5G is currently
Non-Standalone (NSA), uses
4G LTE core as backend
• 5G SA provides reduced
latency and jitter
• Will talk later about the
practical elements
Credit: STL Partners

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Timeline
• IBC Accelerator – a partnership
between broadcasters and
manufacturers to develop new
technology
• Brought in by Zixi in July 2022
• Pitlochry Highland Games
demonstration (at the same time as
IBC)
• Also 5G Private Network on showfloor
• A fateful day in September 2022…

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5G Remote Production in the Middle of Nowhere
• Neutral Wireless is a spinout of the University of Strathclyde SDR Lab
(Glasgow, Scotland)
• Conveniently own a countryside mansion on the banks of Loch Lomond

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5G Remote Production in the Middle of Nowhere (2)
• Two main elements:
– 5G network for production
– Backhaul to cloud
• Pitlochry Highland Games would have
lots of people
• Starlink RV (movable) had just launched
• University researched bonding Starlink
to minimise dropouts

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5G Remote Production in the Middle of Nowhere (3)
• Other projects in Kenya, New
Zealand and Ireland
• Raise awareness of Private 5G to
regulators
• Also tested other workflows, NDI-HX
etc.

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Pitlochry at IBC
• Pitlochry Games shown live at IBC Accelerator Booth

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Technical Elements
Each camera sent to
director
~175ms glass-to-glass
(not tuned)
20Mbit/s 4:2:2 H.264

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Technical Elements (2)
• 5G base station antenna
• Two Starlink dishes for backhaul and
some 4G
• Practical bandwidth of base station
around 200Mbit/s
• Could also do multicell handover for
larger areas (e.g racetrack)
• Upload biased (7 up, 2 down)

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IBC Showfloor
• Showed some lower latency code at
IBC. 100ms glass-to-glass.
• More challenging indoor
environment with concrete between
halls, people etc.
• Showed remote camera shading
demonstration
– Latency critical application

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The Queen’s Funeral
• “Do you still need the gear?” - Sun am.
• Queen’s departure from Scotland
being covered by QTV (production
company), Tuesday pm.
• Lack of RF gear to cover the loading of
the coffin from the other side of the
taxiway
• Confidence of Pitlochry broadcast
meant QTV were happy to use the 5G
Private Network

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The Queen’s Funeral (2)
• We weren’t directly involved in
Pitlochry, but wanted to be involved
because of the national importance
• A licence to operate in the n77 3.8-4.2
GHz shared access band (emergency
request granted within 48 hours)
• Mandatory to wear suits (Hi-vis on top!)
• Lots of schedule changes during the day

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The Queen’s Funeral (3)
• Act of Union 1707
– Long tradition between the
Monarchy and Scotland and also
the Scottish Military which formed
the Guard of Honour
• Balmoral Castle in Scotland
believed to be the Queen’s
favourite residence
• Important for the people of
Scotland to see the Queen
depart

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The Queen’s Funeral (5)

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The Queen’s Funeral (6)

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International coverage

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Moving scenes

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The Queen’s Funeral (7)
• Interference from airport RADAR
• Jitter on 5G Private Network (not
sure why)
• 1080i50 production, latency
around 450ms
– 240ms Encode/Decode Delay (6
frames), 200ms Zixi Delay (played it
really safe)
• Backup path over public 4G (very
long delay)

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Concluding Thoughts
• 5G Private Network used as primary
path for a major event
• First time in the UK (world?) for
newsgathering and first time at an
Airport
• Point-to-point, Camera shading needed
but not noticed until 1hr before air
• Millions if not tens of millions of
viewers

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5G SA Technical Elements
• 5G Standalone is not the same as (most) consumer 5G
• Can require specific Modem Firmware, Host OS, and Host Userspace
(e.g ModemManager)
• Many people turn up with their existing gear and expect it to work!
• Equally, can’t just buy off-the-shelf 5G gear!
• Likely base stations will be wet-leases with specialist engineers

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The future
• No longer in a lab or contrived scenarios
• Requests for real projects solving real world problems
• Varying Regulations in different countries
• 2-3 month waits for licences limit usage
• Work continues to tune base station for low latency and reduced jitter

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Questions?